permanecer

Forms

permanecer (first-person singular present permanezco, first-person singular preterite permanecí, past participle permanecido)^[1] Old Spanish wrote permanesçer; 13th-century documents have permanesca (Leonese, 1252) and permancier.^[2][3][1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin permaneō (“to remain to the end, persist”), conjugated like the verbs in -ecer, as Autoridades notes.^[4][5][6][7] Corominas counts it among the learned words of the family of maneō (“to remain”).^[8] García de Diego and Wiktionary derive it instead from a Vulgar Latin *permanēscō, formed with the suffix -ēscō, and Wiktionary treats it as inherited.^[9][1]

The Latin verb is formed per- (“through, to the end”) and the simple verb.^[10][11] De Vaan traces the simple verb to Proto-Italic *mon-ē- and Proto-Indo-European *mn-eh₁- (“to remain”), with Ancient Greek μένω (ménō, “to remain, stay”) as a cognate.^[12]

Old Spanish had popular verbs from the same root: remaner and remanecer in the poem of the Cid, from remaneō.^[8] The same verb is Portuguese permanecer and Galician permanecer.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's first record is the Fuero viejo de Castilla of 1356, of a law that should stay in force: sy non deviere permanesçer su fuero dellos “unless their law should remain”.^[2] DEMel lists earlier Leonese records of the 13th century, without context.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Corominas found the verb in Alonso de Palencia (1490) and notes that it was in general use in the written language from the Golden Age on.^[8] Nebrija gave it Latin permaneo, and in 1513 also duro;^[13][14] Covarrubias in 1611 defined it simply as “to last”.^[13][14] Autoridades defined it as lasting steadily or persisting in one state without change, and the Academy added “place” to the definition by 1884.^[7][15] Today it means both to stay unchanged and to stay somewhere for a time.^[4]

Timeline

• 13th century – documents have permanesca (Leonese, 1252) and permancier.^[3]
• 1356 – the Fuero viejo de Castilla uses permanesçer.^[2]
• 1490 – Alonso de Palencia uses the verb, Corominas's first record.^[8]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija translates it permaneo.^[5][13]
• 1547 – first record from the Americas, in Mexico: tiene propósito de permanesçer en la tierra “he intends to stay in the land”.^[16]
• 1611 – Covarrubias defines it as “to last”.^[14]
• 1884 – the Academy adds “place” to the definition and gives the Latin etymon.^[15]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive) To remain unchanged in the same place, state or quality: Los precios permanecieron estables todo el año.^[4][1]
2. (intransitive) To stay somewhere for a time.^[4][1]

Related words

• permanente
• permanencia
• remanecer
• manido
• Latin permaneō

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE
3. ^ a b c Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock
4. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. permanecer
5. ^ a b Lleal, Coloma (dir.), DICCA-XV: Diccionario del castellano del siglo XV en la Corona de Aragón, Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, Grup d'Estudis d'Història de la Llengua (GHCL), https://ghcl.ub.edu/diccaxv
6. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses
7. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro
8. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 812
9. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954)
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México
12. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
13. ^ a b c Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 396
14. ^ a b c Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1208
15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies)
16. ^ Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies